The Relationship Between Croatia and Serbia towards BiH: The Occupation Continues

By: Armin Aljović

You know the story of the last armed war against Bosnia and Herzegovina: Milošević's JNA from Serbia, with the help of Mladić's and Karadžić's armies, attacked the internationally recognized Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early nineties and occupied a larger part of its territory by force. That military occupation, directed from Belgrade, lasted for four bloody years.
Meanwhile, a new conflict was instigated in the central parts of Bosnia and in the largest area of Herzegovina. The then authorities of the Republic of Croatia, led by Franjo Tuđman, established control over the area of the so-called Croatian Community, later the Croatian Republic of Herceg-Bosna. 

Two nationalisms, Greater Serbian and Greater Croatian, against one Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens. The goal of the political leadership of the two neighboring countries was to dismember and divide the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina among themselves. 

Nationalists in both Serbia and Croatia were criticized by the opposition, mainly composed of left-leaning parties, but this had little impact on them. Ivan Stambolić and Ivan Đurić openly spoke about Milošević's disastrous policy towards BiH. On the other hand, in addition to historian Dušan Bilandžić, politician Damir Kajin, professor Ivo Banac, General Petar Stipetić, and others, Tuđman also had a whole host of journalists against the war policy towards BiH. Journalists from Globus and Feral wrote very openly about the crimes of Tuđman's army in BiH.

To put it briefly, due to the military occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the expulsion and killing of its citizens, the political and military leadership of Serbia and Croatia were tried and convicted before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The military occupation from Serbia ended with the Dayton Peace Agreement in November 1995, while the occupation from Croatia ended somewhat earlier, with the Washington Agreement in 1994.

According to scholarly literature, a military occupation is a state after the actual military seizure of another country's territory and the establishment of authority on that territory. Peacetime occupation – thus, science deals very seriously and thoroughly with various forms of occupation of another territory – is a legal state that arises when the military forces of one country occupy an area or part of an area of another country with which they are not at war, and exercise authority in that foreign territory.

Militarily speaking, the armed forces of Serbia and Croatia withdrew from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina; they are not in an armed conflict against it, but the authorities from Zagreb and Belgrade continue to exercise power in BiH through their party branches: HDZ and SNSD. The presidents of these parties, Dragan Čović and Milorad Dodik, even state this very openly and proudly. Therefore, BiH managed to fight against the armed aggression of its neighbors, but it has never managed to free itself from political influence and achieve full legal, economic, educational, healthcare, and security sovereignty throughout the country.

At the General Assembly of HDZ in Croatia, the then member of the Presidency and leader of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, stated: “I can guarantee that on the other side of a thousand-kilometer-long European border, there is the Croatian people. An organized Croatian people. Who will send the same message as recently regarding the Pelješac Bridge and numerous other challenges that would be moved from the Western Balkans to Croatia. Well, it won't happen, there are enough of us today at all levels of government to prevent anyone from doing so!” Čović did not offer a way to solve the numerous challenges faced by citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When asked by journalists if he had considered applying for a US visa with a Serbian passport, as he was on the US blacklist as a BiH citizen, Dodik said that he would certainly not use his BiH passport in the near future and that he would publicly renounce it. “I prefer Serbia to BiH; it is my workplace and nothing more,” said Dodik.

There are countless examples in the past and present where Bosnia and Herzegovina and its citizens do not control the processes in their own country, but their neighbors do.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina attempted to file a request with the International Court of Justice in The Hague for a review of the verdict against Serbia for war crimes, the member of the BiH Presidency from Republika Srpska, Mladen Ivanić, refused to give consent for the review to be initiated. “Bosniaks are trying to impose the majorization of Serbs,” said Ivanić. Sharp reactions came from Belgrade before that. Bosnia began to be explained as a source of instability in the region! The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Igor Crnadak, stated at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Western Balkan region in Skopje that “a review of the verdict in the lawsuit of BiH against Serbia before the International Court of Justice in The Hague would complicate relations in the region, so it is better not to touch anything.” Today, some European parliamentarians, such as the Slovenian Igor Šoltes, are demanding that one of the conditions for Serbia's accession to the EU be the recognition of the genocide in Srebrenica.

After the verdict against the former leaders of HZ HB in The Hague at the end of 2017, in which Croatian policy towards BiH was punished for a Joint Criminal Enterprise, the top officials of HDZ BiH, together with that party from Croatia, tried to dispute the verdict. Dragan Čović stated after the verdict: “The Hague verdict against the Bosnian Herzegovinian six is criminal.” Everything that Čović and other HDZ leaders did afterwards was to grant amnesty to Croatian policy towards BiH, at the expense of relations even within Bosnia and Herzegovina itself.

Educational programs in BiH are still not harmonized within the country; instead, they are harmonized with the educational programs of Serbia and Croatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a unified medical system. Cooperation between the Clinical Center in Banja Luka and the KC in Belgrade is exceptional, although such cooperation hardly exists on the Banja Luka – Sarajevo route.

When pro-Bosnian politicians tried to stop the construction of the Pelješac Bridge in the Bay of Mali Ston, because the bridge blocks Bosnia and Herzegovina's only access to the open sea, Zagreb, through HDZ in BiH, blocked any reaction from Sarajevo towards the international community. The Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and member of the HDZ Presidency, Vjekoslav Bevanda, wrote to the leaders of the European Commission that the positions of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Denis Zvizdić, were not official positions of BiH, and that neighboring Croatia should continue building the bridge as it had started.

Following the same pattern, Bosnia and Herzegovina has not managed to recover property in Croatia that belonged to it after the breakup of former Yugoslavia. HDZ has blocked every attempt by pro-Bosnian authorities to reclaim hundreds of millions worth of property in the neighboring country, even though many Bosnian Croats oppose such a policy.

Member of the BiH Presidency Dodik stated that he would certainly follow instructions from Belgrade regarding foreign policy steps. 

Neighboring countries have absolute control over the Armed Forces of BiH as well.  

Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs are offered cheap programs of national unity from Zagreb and Belgrade, while the central governments of these countries economically exploit their country, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during this time. Serbia and Croatia extract millions of euros from the Drina and Buško Lake, and offer Bosnian Serbs and Croats spiritual connections with Belgrade and Zagreb, along with a few renovated schools and kindergartens in BiH.

If anyone can be blamed for Bosnia and Herzegovina not growing into a strong European country after the war, with strong and influential institutions, satisfied people of all confessions and life orientations, as befits a thousand-year-old state, which would, as would be done in Serbia and Croatia, resist any external attack, then it is SDA. For more than 20 years they have been in power in BiH, not counting the extraordinary circumstances of the war, they have never sought partners on the other two sides who feel Bosnia and Herzegovina as their country. If, for example, SDA had built strong state institutions and an influential diplomatic network around the world, together with Croats and Serbs who care about Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there are many such people, instead of trading party interests with HDZ in public companies, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Ivica Dačić, would not have dared to say, even as a joke, in Banja Luka that the opening of the Banja Luka – Doboj highway is an internal, not an external, issue for Serbs. Nor would they run for an opinion in Belgrade regarding the recognition of Kosovo or BiH's entry into NATO. Pro-Bosnian parties must not make the same mistake as SDA.